Heading into college, I was expecting 4 more years of the same high school routine, waking up at the crack of dawn and getting home just in time for dinner, exhausted. I thought the main difference in my classes would be that they were not all located in the same building. Little did I know how wrong I was.
It wasn’t until I was signing up for my first semester of classes at SOAR that I realized just how much free TIME I was gaining. Instead of spending 8 hours a day 5 days a week in the same building, I was surprised to see that my schedule consisted of a couple of classes a day, with some days even class-free!
Scheduling your college classes for the first time is an exciting experience that allows you to plan your days in ways that work best for you. Not a morning person? Don’t schedule any classes until noon! Prefer getting things done all at once? Schedule your classes back to back! Obviously, your schedule will depend on class offerings and availability, but your options are immensely more flexible than they were in high school.
The realization of how much time I was gaining was one of the first big surprises I experienced as a student here at UW-Madison. The challenge I faced was what to do with all of this free time. While I chose to catch up on my sleep, ideally, this free time allows students the valuable opportunity to read and further digest the material they learned in lectures and discussions.
Photo from: https://www.picpedia.org/highway-signs/m/more-time.html